Biography

17 August 1955, Long Beach, California, USA. Raised in Oklahoma, Welch worked as a jobbing songwriter for many years after he moved to Nashville as a teenager. His songs include Let It Be You (Ricky Skaggs), Plain Brown Wrapper (Gary Morris), Those Shoes (Joy Lynn White), Times Up (Carlene Carter with Southern Pacific), Too Old To Die Young (Moe Bandy) and Velvet Chains (Gary Morris). After building up a reputation as a good club act, he has recorded his own albums of tough, hard-hitting songs with his band, the Overtones. They were signed to Reprise Records in 1988 although it took a further two years for his debut to be released. There is no compromise for radio play with his rough-edged, acoustic-based music, and the nearest comparison is with Steve Earle. Warner/Reprise were uncomfortable with Western Beat and would have rather had an album in the Garth Brooks mould. Welch left the...